NOT GOING TO END WELL ~

 

J. HOBERMAN

(Don't Miss the Film )

RE-READING ELSE LASKER-SCHULER ~

 

My edition of Concert (Konzert in German)

has for its front cover, naturally, one of Franz Marc's

wondrous postcard paintings which the artist sent to

Lasker-Schuler almost monthly over the years 1912-14.

Marc would perish in WW I at Verdun as a soldier in 1916,

one year after another of the author's associates,

the poet Georg Trakl, took his life after the horrendous

battle of Grodek. Misery traveled with Else Lasker-Schuler

whether the death of her beloved mother and brother Paul, and even her

only child, also Paul, from an ill-fated marriage, and still in

Concert we receive a dulcet style of stories, essays, dream-state

vignettes. It was one of the last books published by a Jew before

the rise of the Third Reich. Lasker-Schuler was out of Germany before

Hitler clearly showed his face, and wandering, wandering, eventually settling

elderly and unevenly in Palestine, struggling with the language and never

quite coming to terms with where she was and the Palestine of her dreams.

She would die of heart failure in 1945 after publishing her last book of

poems, My Blue Piano (Mein Blaues Klavier). In 1952

Gottfried Benn declared Lasker-Schuler "the greatest

poetess Germany ever had."

Poetry sails through her prose.

[ BA ]

SAVANNAH CHURCHILL ~

 

POETS WHO SLEEP #36 ~

P O E T S     W H O     S L E E P

______________________

                                           drawn & scribed by Bob Arnold

The complete series to date ~ please link here

RE-READING LYLE GLAZIER ~

" You be Harry Glazier's boy, bean't ye?"

 

Sugaring Off

Easter vacation

  he tramps the Gutter Road

      from Gramp's to Uncle Maurice's

  where the whole family's sugaring

Lynn and Orman and Calvin

  trip metal caps off buckets

      under spiles

  draining the sugar bush

Merle bossing the gathering,

  tub slewing, team

      straining, bobsled runners

  grating on a ledge

Perry shoves another slab

  in the firebox

     "a gallon to the barrel, boys,

  get a move on!"

      Maurice tips the dipper, testing

In the kitchen Aunt Pluma

  boils down a batch for

      fancy sugar cakes:

  stars, hearts, scaled fish

Loyce and Thelma spoon snow

  from a dishpan into ie pie plates

      the thick glaze pulls at the fork

  "a little goes a long ways"

_________________________

Lyle Glazier

Prefatory Lyrics

Coffee House Press, 1991

___________________________________

It was the poet and editor Cid Corman

who had the great ear and tenacity to

promote, publish and persevere

so many fine back country poets —

be it Gary Snyder's early book of poems

Riprap, or Lorine Niedecker's entire workbook,

Theodore Enslin's musical memory, and gone into

the bushes forgotten Lyle Glazier's tramps in the sugar bush,

and this is a mere touching of the Corman radiance.

So few could restore that moment of lyrical movement

and visual care as Lyle Glazier works his tablet in

Prefatory Lyrics.

[ BA ]

STAN BRAKHAGE ~

 

Another one from my little books bookcase —

ideal and still easy enough to find a copy,

a few bucks used, and neat leathery

feel cloth, brought forth from

Harvey Brown's Frontier Press —

you can almost smell the past!

Stan Brakhage writing as if an

open letter his loves and lumber

about making film.

Reads closely, Brakhage

always gives more than he's asked.

[ BA ]

RE-READING PAUL BOWLES (GERTRUDE STEIN) ~

 

Did you know Gertrude Stein

pointed Paul Bowles

toward his longtime

hangout of

Tangiers?

Read more!

P A U L     B O W L E S

EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH ~

 

O P E N   T H E    B O O K

NEW BOOK! ~ HOLY GHOST (BOB ARNOLD) ~

 

"Very happy evenings to sit by the fire and read through Holy Ghost. You have been at this particular work of poetry, documenting in unswervingly clean verse, the life around you, that you have built with Susan, for so long. A book like this is doubly enjoyable. One for the clarity and ethos of its poems, unlike anyone else’s these days. And like an intimate extended letter from a long time friend. You may be the only poet I can think of who does something I like to do in poems: show that we live among books. How many volumes of poetry do you read in which no matter what items of life show up, it is as though the poet is shy or even ashamed to depict him or herself as a steady, serious reader? You’ve got gift for portraits of people, mostly the locals of course, and in a Niedecker offhand way you manage to get their vernacular speech into a poem, as well as your own."

_________________

Andrew Schelling

~

Bob Arnold

Holy Ghost

Longhouse 2021

_________________________________

Witness

was the one with you—

whether you knew it

or not

______________________________________

Bob Arnold

212 pages

perfect-bound

$20 

$3.95 shipping

US addresses

We accept Paypal

Please use our email address of 

poetry@sover.net

Payable by check ~

Longhouse 

PO Box 2454

West Brattleboro, Vermont 05303

POETS WHO SLEEP #35 ~

 

P O E T S     W H O     S L E E P

______________________

                                           drawn & scribed by Bob Arnold

The complete series to date ~ please link here

ON THE CHALKBOARD ~

 

Back Road Chalkie

Winter 2021

ROAD THROUGH MIDNIGHT ~

 

R E A D      M E

HANK AARON ~

 

H A N K     A A R O N